LETTER FROM RUTH MATAR (WOMEN IN GREEN)
JERUSALEM
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Dear Friends,
Israel's Prime Minister Sharon, under heavy American pressure, has made the decision to destroy Migron, a community in the Judean Hills just minutes from Jerusalem. Migron is home to 43 young Torah-observant Jewish families with over 60 young children. They are professionals, teachers, students, and soldiers. They work in Migron or in Jerusalem, or in the surrounding communities, such as Michmash. (Michmash was the stronghold of Judah Maccabee, who reestablished Jewish sovereignty in this whole area, during the time of the Chanukah wars.)
It is important to understand that Migron is not some little collection of huts. The community has built a Synagogue. They also have a library, their own health care center, a petting zoo, and a kindergarten.
Why Migron? It seems that U.S. Ambassador, Daniel Kurtzer, has instructed Israel Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz that Migron has to be the first "Jewish settlement" to be evacuated, so as to make possible a contiguous Palestinian State. (More than shameful: Kurtzer, a supposedly Orthodox religious Jew, because of personal ambition, lends himself to try to destroy the Jewish State.)
The truth is that Migron was approved by Sharon and the Defense Ministry. In fact, successive previous Defense Ministers have insisted that Migron is essential strategically and must never be abandoned. Migron was built on Land owned by Jews, and the Migron residents have all the legal papers to prove these facts.
What right does Prime Minister Sharon, or U.S. President George W. Bush, (or the State Department?) or the European Union, have to uproot these Jewish families from their homes? What right does anyone have to give away portions of the Jewish Homeland, the Land given to us eternally and irrevocably by G-d, to a bunch of terrorists, or to anyone else for that matter?
This Friday night we are lighting the first candle of the Chanukah holiday. What exactly are we celebrating?
In children's books the story is very simple:
"Many years ago, a wicked king, named Antiochus, captured the Land of the Jews. He ordered them to give up their religion and to worship his Greek gods. All who refused to obey the king's command, were put to death."
But also for adults -- in the popular perception -- the story is not much more complex:
"Chanukah is the victory of a small band of the courageous Maccabees fighting the mighty Syrian-Greek army of King Antiochus. The miracle of Chanukah is the rededication of the Temple, and the triumph of freedom of religion in the face of oppression."
The TRUE Chanukah story is not so simple. Yes, the Maccabean wars were fought against a foreign occupying force, the Syrian-Greeks. But these wars were also waged against another enemy trying to destroy Israel as a Jewish entity, an enemy WITHIN. The Hellenized Jews at the time of the Hasmonians were a dedicated group of "worldly" Jews drawn to the "beauty" of Greek culture and alienated from their own heritage and from the G-d of Israel. They existed to ingratiate themselves by serving the whim of their foreign patrons and to eliminate the yoke of their own heritage -- the Torah. They longed to be like the other nations of the world, free to indulge in whatever they wished, and to eradicate any vestige of what makes a Jew Jewish in the first place: The G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; the Land of Israel, and the Holy Torah itself.
The REAL battle of the Maccabees was not only against the Syrian-Greek army of Antiochus. It was also against their fellow Jews, who were willing to sell out their Jewish identity for universality, world citizenship, economic advancement, and of course, acceptance by other nations. They were even willing to give up the Holy Temple, and to allow Jerusalem to become a Greek city, all in order to obtain for themselves "the good life", and to become enlightened "citizens of the world".
Today, our modern assimilationists are very much like the Hellenists of old. We have our own version of disloyal High Priests and our own Hellenizers -- the Sharons, the Olmerts, the Yossi Beilins, the Yossi Sarids, and the Shimon Pereses, and others too numerous to mention.
It is not widely known that Antiochus did not issue anti-religious decrees against any other people than the Jews. He simply conquered many nations POLITICALLY, but did not attack their RELIGION in any way. It was ONLY against the Jews that he instituted anti-religious decrees.
Why just against the Jews? Historians say that Antiochus had no intention of issuing anti-religious decrees against the Jews, but his Jewish friends and collaborators, the Hellenists, advised him to do so. The Hellenists of that time - THEY were the ones who advised Antiochus how to break the Jews.
You want to break the Jewish People? Forbid them to study Torah and forbid them to perform circumcisions, allow their holy places to be desecrated and, above all, forbid them to live on their own Promised Land.
History, in truth, repeats itself! Or in modern terms, we now have "The Maccabean Battles - Reloaded!" The internal Jewish enemies counsel the external enemies, and give them advice on how to break the People of Israel. Hellenist Yossi Beilin is funded by the European Union and goes around the world selling his treasonous Geneva Accords. And Mr. Olmert and Mr. Sharon compete with each other as to who can announce more "painful concessions" to the world on Israel's behalf. THE GREAT TRAGEDY of our present situation is that the war of the Hellenized Jews, who joined the enemy against their Jewish brothers, continues to this very day!
Today, we are faced with the same enemies: world powers that are pushing the tiny Jewish state, pushing hard to divide and give away large portions of the Jewish Homeland, the Land given to us eternally by G-d. The same enemies are still here, including the enemy within.
Like then, the enemy within has the political power in our Land, cow-towing to the world powers that urge the weakening and diminution of our tiny nation. And for what reason? Astonishingly, to appease and reward a vast multitude of Arab terrorists who strive to destroy tiny Israel along with the United States and the rest of Western Civilization. Make no mistake: these are the same Arabs who cheered the destruction and massacre of the Twin Towers, and who today, weep because of the capture of Saddam Hussein, as he hid like a rat in a filthy hole in the ground. Their other role model and hero, Yasser Arafat, also cowers like a rat in his decaying compound in Ramallah, but, alas, he is dangerous. This enemy continues to order and organize the murder of Jews in Israel, inside and out of the absurdity known as the 'green line'. Is he brought to justice for these atrocities, is he stopped, is he captured or killed? No. Instead, he is protected by the United States, and courted by Peres, Beilin, and those of their ilk, the Jewish Hellenists of today.
We cannot afford to loose this fight -- THIS FIGHT IS FOR SURVIVAL.
Yesterday, December 17, our Women in Green went to the Judean Community of Migron, to show our solidarity with the 43 families with their 60 children, who are rebuilding this Biblical city. (Biblical references to Migron: Isaiah 10:28, Samuel I 14:2.) We brought the children toys and candy.
Also yesterday, a large number of Rabbis, under an umbrella called the "Land of Israel Rabbis", went to Migron. Last night they issued the following statement:
"The government is forbidden by a total religious prohibition to evacuate any outpost or settlement and has no right to give away parts of the Land of Israel to strangers, and anything done toward this aim is void. "
The "Land of Israel Rabbis" also stated that thousands of Yeshiva students will come to Migron to try and keep Israel Defense Forces troops from evacuating it.
Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, the Chief Rabbi of the Elon Moreh settlement, said that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government was, "disintegrating the Land of Israel. We have never had a worse government than this one. The core of the problem does not lie with the IDF, the Ministry of Defense, or the Interior Ministry. All roads lead to Ariel Sharon. We are telling Ariel Sharon: You have 24 hours (before his speech at the Herzliya Conference tonight) to regain your composure and to examine your position. Otherwise you will lead us to the biggest disgrace in the history of Israel," the Rabbi said.
The Women in Green support these statements in their entirety. Judah Maccabee started the Maccabean battles by his statement: "He who is for G-d, follow me!" Women in Green will join and follow all those who believe in the G-d of Israel, in order to prevent this shameful attempt of the Hellenist Jews to abandon our Homeland.
I want to conclude with the words of Shimon, the Hasmonean: "WE HAVE NOT TAKEN OTHER PEOPLE'S LAND, NOR ARE WE IN POSSESSION OF OTHER PEOPLE'S PROPERTY, BUT OF THE INHERITANCE OF OUR FOREFATHERS."
With Blessings and Love for Israel,
Ruth Matar
P.S. Go to our website http://www.womeningreen.org/ to see pictures of the children of Migron
